Crossing Bridges
by AngelsLame
Summary: Just a few thoughts on what Spike's going through while Buffy was gone after The Gift. Help comes from an unlikely source.


**CROSSING BRIDGES**

DISCLAIMER: Joss' toys. My playground.

RATING: PG (kinda angsty)

SPOILERS: S5 is all fair game

Rupert Giles opened the door and invited him in. They walked into the living room together in silence before his guest asked "What's this all about?" Giles gestured for the other man to take the seat opposite him and perched himself on the edge of the sofa. Spike threw himself into a chair with a mixture of anger at having been summoned here and frustration because he didn't know why.

Giles was looking at his hands, folded in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. He looked up suddenly. "Would you like something to drink?" Spike cocked his head to one side and looked at the Watcher.

"No, thank you, Rupert. I've just eaten." In response to Giles' raised eyebrows he finished, "at the diner?"

"Oh. Oh, of course." Giles shook his head at the misunderstanding and took a deep breath. He looked at Spike until their eyes met. This was important and he wanted Spike's full attention. "Spike. I asked you here to discuss something quite serious." The vampire nodded, took out a cigarette and lit it. It was always easier to talk about some new demon or world threat when he had a fag in his hand.

Giles coughed lightly, annoyed at Spike's bad habit, but the cigarette stayed. "I've spent the better part of these last three months in correspondence with the Council in England. We've been discussing your status."

Spike answered slowly, "Why don't you just off me yourself, Watcher? You know you want to." Then softly, he added, "You know I want you to."

Giles was offended by both statements and spoke quickly, "Spike, you're a hard-nosed asshole of a vampire, you know that?"

The blonde vampire looked up at Giles in surprise and something like a grin washed across his face. "Didn't know you remembered those words, mate." He stubbed out his cigarette.

Giles started to smile but looked away. This wasn't a time for levity, serious matters were being discussed. He stood up and began to pace. He regained his composure and sat back down. Spike was silent. "Let me start again." Spike nodded silently.

"The Council's first suggestion was to do as you say...to "off" you. But after I explained your...disabled state to them, they changed their tune. They are fascinated by the Initiative's technology and asked me capture you for their own experiments." Spike tensed visibly at this, but Giles interrupted what surely would have been a string of curses. "Of course, I couldn't...wouldn't...refused do that. They fussed and sputtered for a while, but then we came to a compromise."

"Which is?" Spike ventured, still wary.

"You and I are going to England where the Council will interview you. Questions only, no tests. After which they will pay to have the chip removed in the best medical facility in London. Once it is removed, they will interview you again and then release you. You will be in my care the entire time and will be allowed to leave at any time of your own volition."

"They'll take out the chip? The Council?"

"No, a medical team at a hospital of my choice will do that. The Council will get the chip, once it is removed, and the knowledge gained in your interviews."

"And they won't hold me accountable...for anything?"

"No."

"And they'll let me go...after? To do as I please?"

"Yes," the older man promised. "If, however, you should go back to your old ways, the Council will track you down and stake you."

"No experiments, then? No playin' around with my 'ead?"

"They will want a demonstration of how the chip works before it's removed. But Spike, the Council knows everything about vampires. They already have volumes written about you in particular. It is the chip they're interested in now, not you."

Spike absorbed that bit of information and picked up on, "Volumes, huh?" He grinned up at the Watcher who stood over him awaiting an answer.

"Don't be smug. There are three on you, but 312 on Dracula."

"Oh." Spike's face fell and he leaned back in the chair. He deliberated silently for a while and finished another cigarette before answering, "Well, if it's all the same, I don't believe I'll take them up on their swell offer just yet."

He'd prepared for this conversation, knowing that it would take a while to prove to Spike that this was for his own good. "Why not?" Giles sat back down.

"First off, there's the whole sawing open my skull thing. Gives me a hell of a headache." Spike paused, waiting for Giles to be amused. He wasn't. "Then, there _is_ the whole issue of the Council. I don't trust that lot. They're likely to 'ave my soddin' heart cut out."

"I know, and you're probably right to suspect them, but I will be there the whole time, Spike. It was one of my conditions. I won't leave your side and if they should try to do anything to you while you're incapacitated, I swear I will...well, I'll make sure they don't."

With something like gratitude in his eyes, Spike replied, "Thank you, Rupert." After a moment he asked, "Why?"

Giles took a deep breath, "I know you think I'm going to say that Buffy believed in you and so I feel an obligation to honor her this way. And yes, that's partially true, but there are other reasons." He looked at the other man. "Spike, you have proven yourself to me, not an easy thing to do, I might add. Your service in the last year has been unsolicited, for the most part, and extremely helpful, also for the most part. What began for you as a quest to win Buffy's heart, became, I believe, an enlightenment for you."

The Watcher walked to the window and looked out thoughtfully. After a moment he continued, "You've deliberately chosen to act for good in how you've lived your unlife the last few months. When...when Glory was defeated, you might have left Sunnydale, or chosen to hole up somewhere and grieve. But you've been out there, instead, fighting the good fight. You've deliberately chosen to not be the selfish boy or the sadistic monster you once were. You have, therefore, sought and gained control over your demon and ergo, your destiny. You have created for yourself, choice and freewill." He turned toward Spike and added in wonder, "You've made yourself into a man again."

"Every choice I made was because of her!" Spike barked. "I fell in love and would have...will do anything for her."

"Spike you're stronger than you think. You don't need..."

Spike was on his feet in an instant, yelling, "Jesus, Watcher, you don't know what I **_need_** any more than you bleedin' knew what **_Buffy_** needed. You might have known her, but you never **_knew_** her. Least not as well as I did. Did you know that she spent at least half an hour crying at her mother's grave every night? Did you know that she slept with a candle burning in her bedroom window for a whole month after the soldier left her? Did you know that she can face down the fiercest monster, but that she screams and closes her eyes on the merry-go-round? I knew those things. I kept them for her. I reminded her of them...of her humanity." Spike began to walk and gesture wildly in his tirade.

"She was **_your_** Slayer, but she was **_my_** love. I knew when she was lonely and frightened So **_I_** stuck to her then like glue. I knew when she needed someone who could talk to her about a life made up of slaying and killing. So then **_I_** listened. I knew when she needed a knight in shining armor, someone to trust, so then **_I_** fought by her side. I knew she needed someone to tell her she was a woman, not just a Slayer. And **_I_** was the one who did that." He stopped, running out of words.

Giles put his hand on Spike's shoulder. "You're right, Spike. The things you say are true. None of us could ever fill certain gaps in her life. I was her Watcher, her guardian, her trainer, and I like to think we shared a special bond, but even if she didn't admit it to herself, _you_ were her confidant, her comrade in arms, her friend. You were there for her every time she needed someone, the rest, well, their lives were on other paths. You challenged her. You matched her blow for blow. You took everything she could give, physically and emotionally and you kept coming back for more. She found something honorable in you or she wouldn't have turned to you for help as she did. You had a special place in her life. You see, Buffy loved many, many people, but she respected very few."

Spike raised his head with something like gratitude in his eyes, as though he'd been bequeathed a priceless gift. Then he hung his head again, at a loss for words now for other reasons.

"Spike, Buffy he may have kindled the fire, but you've attended to it and fueled it, both before and since...well, since she...died. You may think that Buffy is still your motivation to be good, but she's not. You've elected to act as you did, as you still do, not out of fear oror love for her, but because it satisfies something deep inside of you."

"Everything that changed in me, changed because I loved her," Spike spoke softly now. More to himself than to the Watcher. Tears were flowing down his cheeks and his body shook with sobs. His legs gave out and he fell to his knees, covering his face in grief and confusion. "Without her, I don't know who I am supposed to be."

"Spike, its not who you're supposed to be, but who you in fact, are." Giles squatted down in front of the other man. "I've discussed this with the rest. Each of us feels that you've proven yourself to us time and time again. The only one yet to trust you, is you. I contacted the Council because I...we believe you deserve the right to understand that your desire to do good comes from your heart, not from a piece of plastic implanted in your brain. Spike, take this one last challenge, but not for her, or me or any of us. Take it to prove to yourself what kind of man you are."

"What if...What if it turns out I'm no kind of man, Rupert?" Spike looked into the man's eyes for any sign of doubt. What he saw in return was only trust and affection and belief.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, my boy. No need to worry about it until then." Giles pulled Spike to his feet and embraced him.

Spike held on to Giles tightly. He felt as though he were taking his first steps, or being turned again and the world was spinning. It had been so longwas this...fear? He could not find the words to respond, so he nodded is assent.

"Good. We'll leave tomorrow."

 **FIN**


End file.
